Individual and family environmental correlates of TV and screen time among European children

Too much sitting, and especially too much time behind the TV or other 'screen-based' activities, may increase risk for cardiometabolic ill health. In order to design interventions to encourage and facilitate school-age children to spend less time behind screens, we aimed to investigate which individual and family environmental factors are related to television and computer time among 10- to-12-year-old children within and across five European countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Norway). A paper describing this study was just published in the journal BMC Public Health, with Dr. Maite Verloigne as first author.
Data were used from the ENERGY-project. Children and one of their parents completed a questionnaire, including questions on screen time behaviours and related individual and family environmental factors.
In all countries, children reported more television and/or computer time, if children and their parents thought that the maximum recommended level for watching television and/or using the computer was higher and if children had a higher preference for television watching and/or computer use and a lower self-efficacy to control television watching and/or computer use. We also found different correlates across countries: parents watching TV together with their child was significantly positively associated with children’s television time in all countries, except for Greece. If parents watched more TV or spend more time behind other screens was associated with a higher level of children’s television and computer time in Hungary. Having parental rules regarding children’s television time was related to less television time in all countries, except for Belgium and Norway.